


when we play we go all night, eating twizzlers

by queersintherain



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Asexual Alex Danvers, Asexual Character, Boss/Employee Relationship, Coming Out, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Insecure Kara, Secret Relationship, Sort Of, games night, nerdy Cat, subtle praise kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-17 23:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13087824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queersintherain/pseuds/queersintherain
Summary: And if it was hard for Kara not to stare at Cat before it’s impossible now, now that she knows Cat wants her to stare, is staring at her too.It feels like a dream, like she’s still high from the fumes, and Kara pinches her impenetrable skin under her desk, checking if she actually woke up. It’s her idea, that they don’t need to tell everyone they’re dating right away, and Cat is fine with it when she suggests it. The email scandal is too fresh—it would look terrible for Cat to be dating her former assistant on top of that.--Kara and Cat start dating and don't tell anyone, and this is possibly not the best idea. Also featuring Danvers sisters, and games nights, and specific nerdy stuff!





	when we play we go all night, eating twizzlers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ImaginaryDragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaginaryDragons/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, I hope you like it! I sort of combined both of the prompts (in the end notes for anyone interested), and am not quite sure it's what was intended by either, but I really had a blast writing it. 
> 
> And thank you so much to my amazing beta [geekystorytelling](http://archiveofourown.org/users/GeekyStorytelling), who read the previous draft of this and gave me super helpful feedback! (This version was not copyedited at all, so all mistakes are my own!)
> 
> Title is from ["Roll a D6"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54VJWHL2K3I).

Cat trembles at the first brush of Kara’s lips against hers. “Please touch me,” she says into Kara’s mouth, and Kara hears the desperation in it. The truth about where their relationship has been going, the truth that she and Cat have been dancing around for months, now. All undone on this balcony that has become her sanctuary—as Supergirl and as Kara Danvers—where she and Cat have been growing closer.

The balcony where Kara came first, after nearly suffocating in the fire that swallowed the port, that is going to haunt National City for months, maybe years now.

Kara reaches up with soot-blackened fingers and clutches carefully at Cat’s shoulders, pulls her close for another kiss, her cape snapping in the wind.

“I can’t believe you got a shapeshifter to try to throw me off your scent,” Cat says later, still sounding disgruntled even as she’s kissing Kara, and Kara laughs into her lips, giddy with it.

-

They’ll have to keep things professional at work, is the first thing Cat says, after. As long as they can do that, as long as Kara isn’t reporting directly to Cat anymore, the board can’t say anything about them seeing each other, or if they do, it won’t matter. Kara isn’t sure if she believes this last part, but she is still high on adrenaline, does believe Cat can do anything she sets her mind to.

The fire—blue and purple, set with alien chemicals—had been raging all evening, so the bullpen is full of over-caffeinated CatCo employees still breaking the news, just as the DEO is probably full of agents making sure the rest of the arsonists are locked away, the rest of the chemicals are secured. Kara calls Alex from the balcony to let her know she’s alright, grabs her spare set of clothes from the secret office, takes Cat up on her offer of using the shower in her private bathroom (Kara has a lot of questions, about this), and starts making coffee runs for the beleaguered news staff.

Cat, from her office, is the ringmaster, sending junior reporters out for quotes, photos, to talk to first responders, to get a quote from someone about the alien involvement.

Kara falls asleep on the couch on the balcony just as the sun is coming up, and wakes hours later with one of Cat’s soft grey throws spread on top of her.

At 10:00am sharp she’s sitting in a hard wooden chair in CatCo’s Human Resources department, fiddling with her glasses, thinking about the look on Cat’s face when she told her. When Kara, brave, reckless, reached out to close the gap between them. When she told Cat she was the first person she wanted to see. She wonders if kissing— _she kissed Cat, Cat kissed her!_ —means she’d be able to convince Cat to go and get some sleep, because Kara knows she didn’t go home at all.

“Is this because you think it’ll make her promote you?” Deb from HR asks as they sit down for the interview, and Kara is too shocked to respond, feels the shame settle in her belly, heavy and thick.

-

She doesn’t tell Cat. It’s not a big deal, and she doesn’t have a chance to mention it anyway. Kara only had one real spare outfit that she used last night, but she had also stashed most of the clothes from her Red Kryptonite shopping spree in the secret office, just so she wouldn’t have to look at them, so that’s what she’s wearing this morning. It was more of a necessity than a choice, but whether it’s the clothes or the kiss, Cat can’t keep her eyes off her. Kara gets a thrill out of the way she keeps forgetting things like where her pen is, or that she already has reading glasses on top of her head.

And if it was hard for Kara not to stare at Cat before it’s impossible now, now that she knows Cat wants her to stare, is staring at her too.

It feels like a dream, like she’s still high from the fumes, and Kara pinches her impenetrable skin under her desk, checking if she actually woke up. It’s her idea, that they don’t need to tell everyone they’re dating right away, and Cat is fine with it when she suggests it. The email scandal is too fresh—it would look terrible for Cat to be dating her former assistant on top of that. Kara wants to keep dreaming.

-

“Who are you texting?” Winn asks, looks at her funny over the Betrayal at House on the Hill tiles they have spread over Kara’s coffee table, and Kara flushes at the realization that really, everyone she would be texting is right here. Winn has just finished explaining the rules of the new-to-them game, Alex is pouring out glasses of wine for herself and James, Lucy is digging a bottle of craft beer out of the fridge.

It’s been a few days. Games night was postponed to let everyone sleep in the aftermath of the most recent crisis, though Kara isn’t sure everyone actually has. Alex still has bags under her eyes, James still looks stiff from all of the running around he was doing to get good shots.

Kara stuffs another piece of pizza in her mouth so she can delay her answer for a minute, and then blurts out, “J’onn!” just as Lucy sits down again on the couch next to Alex. “Just realizing, you know, we never invite him to these things. He might like to come.”

“Isn’t J’onn your boss?” Winn asks, wrinkling his nose, and Kara sinks further down into the floor.

“So am I, technically,” Lucy says. “But I don’t think J’onn would be able to come to games night unless Alex or I were on shift, and I am not missing this.” She holds up the card representing her character. “My hobbies include football and shiny objects, and I am the buffest character in this game. Get ready to get schooled, guys.”

Kara’s phone dings again, and she looks down at the message.

Cat: _But how fast could Supergirl get to my penthouse? Discreetly, of course._

“Actually, the way the game works—” Winn is saying, and Kara stands. She reddens at all of the eyes on her.

“Uh, Miss Grant needs me,” she says. “For work stuff. Important work…” she can’t think of anything, can only think about Winn saying _your boss_ with disdain in his voice, about how telling her friends about where she’s really going would break her wonderful little bubble where Cat Grants wants Kara to come over to her _apartment_. “…things,” she finishes, feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet.

“You’re not even her assistant anymore,” Winn says. “You’re doing… special projects stuff. How long can she keep calling you for this?”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Kara says, heading to the balcony. “Alex, save me some pizza?”

“No promises,” Alex says.

Kara has flown by Cat’s balcony before, but she’s never actually landed there. It’s the penthouse of course, and high enough above the other buildings in the area that she’s not worried about being seen, but she does a quick scan of the area just in case. There’s no one hiding behind Cat’s lush, modern balcony furniture, no one among the hedges along one side… there are two humans inside, and one of them is sleeping.

Kara lands and, feeling a little foolish, knocks on the glass door.

“Three minutes,” Cat says when she opens it, smiling softly, and Kara grins back at her. “You’d better come in.”

The couch in Cat’s living room is sinfully comfortable. They kiss for hours, Cat straddling Kara’s hips. Her mouth is insistent, her teeth sharp on Kara’s jaw and Kara burns, and burns. She’s surrounded by the smell of Cat, of her house, of her perfume, by the sound of her heartbeat, her quiet gasps. She doesn’t want to wake up.

By the time Kara gets back to her apartment everyone is gone, everything is cleaned up, and there’s a note from Alex on her counter, on top of a couple of her bills, saying they have to have a sister night soon.

-

Cat wears a scarf to work, has never looked so much like her namesake, satisfied and preening.

She drags Kara into her private bathroom after lunch, tells James “Kiera was just helping me fix a rip in my dress,” when they emerge to find him waiting outside the outer glass doors.

Cat leaves at 5:00pm on the dot, and Kara can feel the eyes of everyone on the floor staring at the private elevator doors as soon as they shut behind her.

Kara leaves twenty minutes later, and picks Cat up from her balcony where she is waiting, bundled up in winter clothing as instructed. They eat breakfast for dinner at a half-outdoor cafe in Thailand that serves Alex’s favourite green curry, and Kara pays with the cash tucked inside the passport she actually remembered to bring this time, and Cat kisses her in the street.

“How did you find this place?” she asks.

“Indie food blog,” Kara says, checking to see if anyone’s watching before pulling Cat’s winter clothes down from where she’d stashed them above the restaurant. “I try not to go anywhere too well known too often—it’s a safety thing.”

The privacy is convenient, though.

The next night they go for lunch in a small village in Japan, and then to a diner Kara likes in Maui for pie, with Cat wearing sunglasses to avoid being recognized.

Before their next date, Cat says “we should stay in,” with a glint in her eye, and when Kara gets to Cat’s penthouse after work, it’s just in time to catch sight of two caterers leaving through the front door.

There is a feast on Cat’s table—Kara recognizes the bacon-wrapped scallops from the company she usually calls to cater CatCo events. But there’s no one else here, just Cat stepping into the dining room in a gorgeous blue dress.

“All of this is for me?” Kara asks, and Cat rolls her eyes.

“I expect to eat some of it too,” she says, but she’s giving Kara a look that is decidedly fond.

The table is huge, but Cat sits right next to Kara, leaves one of her hands on Kara’s thigh the whole time. The food is delicious, and Cat is asking her questions about her alien metabolism as they’re eating, as Kara doesn’t have to hide how much she’s eating, and Kara can’t believe this is her life.

And then the door opens, and—“Carter,” Kara chokes out, leaping to her feet, sure she can’t get any more red without spontaneously combusting. And it’s not like they were doing anything either, just eating dinner. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” Carter says, brow furrowed as he regards the table, filled with emptied plates. “Mom, were you having company?”

“Just Kara, sweetheart,” Cat says, striding over to hug her son. Kara knows she’s shocked too, heard the spike in her heart rate, but she’s handling it much better. “You remember my former assistant Kara, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Carter says. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m—” Kara says, and stops.

“Just having a friendly dinner,” Cat says with a look at her that Kara can’t decipher. “Would you like to join us? I thought you were going to be at Mason’s till later.”

“I ate,” Carter says, still looking at the food instead of either of them. “I’ll be in my room.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara says when he’s gone. “I panicked.”

“It’s fine,” Cat says, but Kara has gotten used to reading Cat in the years of working for her, is not sure it is. “But I think you should go. I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought he would see this so soon. I need to think about what to tell him.”

“What to tell him?” Kara asks, heart pounding, and Cat whirls around to face her.

“I’m not lying to my son,” she says, voice hard. “If you have a problem with that Kiera, we need to be having a different conversation.”

 _Kiera_. Cat’s said it at work since they started whatever this is, of course, but here, in Cat’s home, where they’d been having dinner, where Cat had been touching her, is a knife in her heart.

“That wasn’t what I was saying,” Kara says, even though it might have been, she doesn’t know now. “I just…” she can’t finish the sentence.

“I can’t have this conversation while my son is in the house,” Cat tells her, firm, still a bit of a bite in her tone. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Kara’s eyes burn as she flies back to her apartment, as she takes off her suit, takes her passport out of where she’d stored it in her boot just in case Cat wanted to go somewhere after.

 _Kiera_. Cat didn’t say they were over, she said she would talk to her tomorrow, but Kara doesn’t know what kind of conversation they’ll be having after this. She hasn’t thought of it as lying, not telling people yet. They’re being discreet. And she never said anything to Cat about not telling Carter.

-

Cat is in meetings all morning, and then CatCo gets an exclusive with an environmentalist with a new plan for rebuilding the port, and Kara aches being right next to Cat all day but without Cat looking at her, saying anything to her.

Winn and James are looking at her. Kara barely slept, is sure she looks terrible.

At one thirty she can’t take it anymore and flies off to help with the cleanup currently going on by the water. She lifts charred shipping container and helps haul a tanker out of the ocean, and tries to come up with a discreet way to ask Alex about all of this during their sister night tonight.

And then there’s an alien attack before Kara even gets back to work. When it’s finally over, at about three in the morning, Alex follows her home and says,

“I have something to tell you,” with steel in her eyes.

As soon as they get in the door her sister is soft again though, skittish, and Kara tries to press a mug of tea on her as she sits on the couch, staring at the floor. Alex waves it off, twisting her hands in her lap instead. Her heartbeat is going crazy.

“I’m… uh, homoromantic and asexual and I’m dating Lucy,” Alex says in a rush, her voice strained.

Kara doesn’t know how to begin unpacking that sentence. It sinks in after a moment though, and she leans over, wraps her arms around Alex, presses a kiss to her hair.

“I love you,” she says. “I’m so happy for you.”

Alex laughs and half-sobs. “Do you know what any of that means?” she sounds defensive, almost angry, but Kara knows her sister, knows that means she’s scared.

“I don’t care,” Kara says. “You were scared, and you told me anyway. And I mean, I think I know what dating Lucy means. Can you tell me? About the other stuff?”

Alex takes a deep breath—Kara feels her chest expand and contract through their hug, and knows she’s not going to be asking any carefully worded questions about her relationship with Cat tonight.

“It means I like girls but I don’t feel sexual attraction, and I don’t know how I feel about sex right now.”

“Okay,” Kara says, and hugs her tighter. “What do you do? Wait, how long have you been dating? How long have you known? Did I tell you I was happy for you?”

Alex laughs again, a real one this time. “We cuddle,” she says. “And kiss, and… other things. God, this is awkward.”

“You’re fine,” Kara says. “This is what sisters are for.”

They talk until it’s late enough that Kara has to go in to work. Alex is still terrified at the idea of telling Eliza, and all Kara could think about during _that_ discussion was how much further ahead of her Alex is in that regard without realizing it.

There was a natural lull in the conversation, where Kara thought about mentioning Cat, but with what happened the other night she wasn’t sure where to start. She tells herself she didn’t want to steal Alex’s thunder.

-

Kara gives her weekly reports to Genvieve in HR now, who’s nicer than Deb and never says a word to Kara about the change in reporting structure. Kara has a meeting with her first thing in the morning, and gets there five minutes early, a latte for herself clutched in one hand and a latte for Cat in the other.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but after this long, and with your performance, how are you still just a step above being her assistant?” Genvieve asks.

Kara doesn’t know how to answer the question.

Cat Grant is the most powerful woman—person—in National City, she could be with anyone she wanted. Kara’s not stupid, or ignorant of her own value. She has a job she enjoys, great friends, and a sister she loves more than anything, but she knows what’s really special about her on paper is a secret, has to stay that way for everyone’s safety. She can fly Cat to different countries for dates but Kara Danvers is who she’s actually with, 95% of the time.

Sometimes she doesn’t know how that could be enough, for someone like Cat.

-

Cat isn’t in her office when Kara gets upstairs so she leaves the laser-vision-heated latte on her desk along with a note she spent the half hour she could have been sleeping writing.

She spends the minutes waiting for Cat to show up in agony, spends the hour after seeing the smile it brought to Cat’s face in a distracted haze, going over and over the words in her mind.

Cat takes pity on her eventually and calls Kara out to the balcony to talk in private. Cat is still holding the note.

“I wasn’t sure I would be able to get the words out,” Kara says. “I’m sorry I freaked out, when Carter showed up. This is all pretty new to me.”

“Dating someone with a child?” Cat asks, voice neutral in the way that Kara knows means she’s hiding sharp teeth behind it. She’s softer today, though. The note, and maybe the time, did help.

“Yes,” Kara says. “But I love Carter, Cat. I just don’t know what the rules are. I want to learn.”

“You are good at learning,” Cat murmurs, and cups Kara’s face in her hand, lifts her chin up so she’s facing her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. It’s difficult dating as a single mother, even when you’re me.”

“We’re dating?” Kara asks, smiling, because—it’s the second time Cat’s said it in minutes. It has to be true.

“If that’s what you—” Cat starts, and sinks into Kara’s arms when she hugs her.

“If we’re dating you can’t call me Kiera,” Kara says, before she can lose her nerve. “Okay?”

“Deal,” Cat says, and Kara isn’t quite sure Cat understands what she means, what it felt like to have it hurled in her face the other day, but she doesn’t want to talk about it now, is just flooded with relief that they’re okay again. “Will you tell Carter with me?” Cat asks.

-

“Games night is always on a Thursday,” Winn says, looking like he’s been personally betrayed.

“Not when there’s a Supergirl emergency,” Kara says, somehow managing to keep a perfectly straight face. And there’s not, of course, but there was one just last week. It’s plausible.

“But if this were a Supergirl emergency you would tell me about it,” Winn says, and that’s true, too.

“I’m sorry,” Kara says, and it doesn’t feel like enough, but she’ll make it up to him. Tonight the Supergirl emergency is her and Cat, at Cat’s penthouse, sitting across from Carter at the table eating Chinese takeout. Cat says,

“Kara and I are dating,” and Kara says,

“Also I’m Supergirl,” because they’re already truth telling, because he would have to know eventually, because she trusts Cat, and Cat is looking at her with shining eyes, and Kara has to add, “please don’t tell anyone Carter. It would be really dangerous for you and your mom.”

Carter has been stunned into silence. “Are you serious?” he asks eventually, and his eyes are wide but she can tell he doesn’t quite believe her. “There’s no way you’re—”

Kara floats up from the chair, hovers a foot above the table, watches the unfettered joy on Carter’s face.

“That is so awesome!” he says, and then, “can we go flying?”

-

“I’m going to make you scream,” Cat tells her after, when they’re lying on her couch, when Carter has been sleeping for at least an hour.

“I’ve never… I…” Kara takes deep breaths, tries to calm herself down. They’ve been kissing for over a week, the kind of kissing that makes Kara’s toes curl, and she’s not sure why it didn’t occur to her, that they would be doing more than that so soon.

“Relax, darling,” Cat says, sure fingers teasing her nipple—under the shirt, over the super suit—and Kara can’t believe she’s here, in this moment, where Cat is touching her like this. Kara has never done more than kiss someone, has always been too scared to, with her powers.

It feels incredible.

It would only take a second of losing control.

“I need to stop,” she says.

Cat pulls away immediately. “Are you alright?” she asks. “Too fast?”

“Yes,” Kara says, doesn’t want to explain, not yet. “Yes.”

-

She asks Alex the next day, when they’re training.

“Why do you want Kryptonite?” Alex asks, giving her a look, and Kara goes in for an attack, tries to flip her sister onto the ground to get her to stop looking at her like that. It doesn’t work, of course. Alex is fast.

“I’m not ace,” Kara says, trying out the new term carefully, and Alex flushes but doesn’t correct her. “I’d really like to… y’know. At some totally hypothetical point in the future. I don’t think it’s going to be possible for me without help. Your help.”

It might be, of course, Kara wouldn’t know unless she tried. But it’s not worth the risk.

Alex kicks her legs out from under her and the air whooshes out of Kara’s lungs. She can admit she wasn’t paying as much attention to the sparring as she could have been.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Alex says.

-

Lucy shows up at the training room just about when Alex’s shift is over, and Kara realizes it’s Friday, they have a date. Of course they have a date. Lucy convinces Kara to come out for dinner with them though, tells her she isn’t intruding, and it’s nice spending time with her friends again, nice getting to see Alex and Lucy like this. Lucy makes Alex smile, and Kara wonders how she didn’t see it before. Her serious sister is giggly, and tries to cover her face with her hands, and relaxes into Lucy’s arm around her on one side of the booth of the dimly lit Italian restaurant.

“I love your sister, Kara,” Lucy says, when Kara asks, when Alex is in the bathroom. “I’m not asexual, but it doesn’t bother me that she is. I’m thrilled to see her figuring out new things about herself, what makes her happy.”

What makes her happy.

Kara texts Cat as soon as she gets back from dinner, tells her that she misses her and then feels unbearably insecure about it until Cat texts back that she misses her too, even though they saw each other day at work, even though it’s only been a day since they were together outside of work, too.

She doesn’t exactly remember why she suggested not telling people about her and Cat, but since she did, it feels more like a solid state, harder to undo. She’s not sure how to reopen that conversation, especially since they’ve already told Carter.

-

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Cat says next time they’re together. Kara doesn’t quite know how to tell her it’s not discomfort, or that discomfort is only part of it. Cat makes her heart beat faster, and she’s spent a lot of time eating fancy dinners with her lately, getting dragged into bathrooms by her, making out on the couch with her. Even after the conversation about Carter though, she’s not sure she can work herself up to that level of emotional honesty again. Part of her doesn’t want to jinx it.

They kiss, and Cat touches her neck, scrapes her nails down her clothed back, and Kara wants more, more. More touching, more… something else too, a feeling she can’t quite put words to.

-

It takes a week. Kara hasn’t worked her way up to actually talking about sex with Cat, but when Alex comes over for sister night, she passes Kara a little black box.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think of this earlier, Kara.” She gives a little self-deprecating laugh. “It wasn’t exactly top of my mind.”

Kara wraps her arm tighter around Alex. They’re on Kara’s couch, pizza boxes on the table in front of them. “I didn’t ask,” she says. “This was super fast, by the way. Thank you.”

“Well,” Alex says. “I had to get approval from J’onn, and he probably read my mind while I was asking, so I hope whatever hypothetical future sex you’re having is worth it.”

“Noooo,” Kara groans, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t want to know that.”

“Well, nothing comes for free,” Alex says, sounding entirely too chipper about it. “Pass me the remote, we have a lot of _Veep_ to catch up on with all of these crises lately.”

-

“What was your planet like?” Carter asks Kara the next time she’s over. Cat is actually making dinner, has shooed both of them out of her ridiculously well-stocked kitchen, and Carter is showing Kara the latest Zelda game. Kara has been itching to try it as soon as he turned the screen on, but has never been able to play these games without breaking the controllers.

Her mind catches up a minute later. Carter wants to know about Krypton. The name is public knowledge, has been since before she landed, thanks to _The Daily Planet_ ’s early reporting on her cousin, but no one has really asked her, except for Cat during that first interview.

“Krypton was an advanced society,” she says. “It was structured around different guilds like the Judiciary Guild and the Science Guild, and…” she trails off. Kara was only a little older than Carter is now, when she landed. She thinks of her first day on Earth, tries to remember what she thought then.

“I don’t know about all of Krypton,” she says slowly. “That would be a little like me asking you what all of Earth was like. I lived in Argo City with my parents. Out my window I could see huge glass spires—Kryptonian architecture is different than Earth architecture. We didn’t have birds or greenery. We did have spaceships, and robots, and all of the mechanical processes were silent. When I first got here I was afraid of the popcorn maker.” That she couldn’t control her hearing yet hadn’t helped with that one either.

“Really?” Carter asks, sounding delighted, and that’s when Kara catches sight of Cat in the doorway.

“Dinner’s ready,” she says when she sees Kara looking.

Dinner is incredible—rosemary potatoes, charred asparagus, pork medallions that are perfectly tender and juicy, and possibly the best mushrooms Kara has ever tasted. Carter is full of questions about Krypton, and Kara answers them freely. She tells him about the birthing matrix, how she was slated to join the Science Guild like her father before her, how Kryptonians wore their family’s crest on all of their clothing.

“And yours is the ’S’,” Carter says. “Yours and Superman’s family.”

“It’s not an ’S,’” Kara says, for what feels like the millionth time but is probably only the third or fourth. “It represents the House of El—it’s a Kryptonian character.”

“That just looks exactly like an ’S,’” Carter says, skeptical, and Kara shrugs. She knows exactly how unlikely it is because Alex had gotten onto a kick about this when they were in high school, but it is what it is.

“What does it mean?” Cat asks, and Kara startles. She trusts Cat enough to know that this won’t end up in _CatCo Magazine_ , by now, but she still hesitates.

“El mayarah,” Kara tells her. “Stronger together.”

“Awesome,” Carter says, and starts asking her about the other houses. Cat just watches.

“Are you staying over?” Carter asks, when they’re done dinner, and Kara stammers. Cat saves her.

“Kara’s going to stay for a while, darling,” she says. “Could you clear the table for me please? We have something to discuss in my office.”

Something to discuss. It sounds ominous, and even though Kara has no idea what Cat could want to have a ‘talk’ about, she feels her heart sink. She’s been feeling off for a while now—since stopping Cat from going further the other week, since even before then, maybe.

When Cat shuts the door there’s a shrewd look on her face, and Kara wraps her arms around herself. They stare at each other, and Kara does’t want to speak first, isn’t exactly sure what’s happening here.

Eventually Cat steps forward, puts a hand on her arm and asks, “Are you alright, Kara?” and Kara is shaking. Cat’s arms are around her and she is shaking apart, out of control. Out of control, and she can barely touch Cat for fear of hurting her like this, but in her purse is—

Kara detaches from the embrace, grabs her bag from the corner of the room where she’d deposited it when she first came over. The device is small, the size of a cell phone, and it emits a faint green light when she uses her thumbprint to turn it on. She clutches it tightly in one hand that can no longer shatter it and reaches out both arms to a confused Cat, tears in her eyes.

They’re hugging again and Kara can feel the pressure, this time.

“What is this?” Cat asks. “Is it hurting you?”

Kara shakes her head against Cat’s neck. “It regulates my powers,” she says, voice thick. “So we can do… more than kissing without me hurting you.”

“I’m fine with you hurting me a little,” Cat says, and Kara can hear the smirk in her voice.

“Without accidentally killing you, then,” Kara says.

“Oh,” Cat says. “That’s why you didn’t want to… why didn’t you tell me?”

“You still intimidate me, a little,” Kara says, voice muffled. It’s easier to say when she can feel Cat holding her tightly, is full from a meal with her and her son, has just spent an evening being asked about Krypton by people who care about her answers, about how they affect her personally. “And everything was going so well,” she adds. “I didn’t want to break the mood… more. Telling someone you could shatter their fingers or their pelvis isn’t exactly—” she realizes what she’s implied and stops, flushed again. “I wanted to be good for you.”

Cat slips out of the hug and holds Kara away at arm’s length, looking her directly in the eye.

“You are,” she says. “And I want all of you, Kara. Kara Danvers, Supergirl, and whoever you were before you were either of them, if you’ll tell me about her.”

All of her. It eases a hurt Kara didn’t even realize she was carrying. Cat wants all of her.

“My friends too?” she asks, before she realizes she’s going to. “I mean, I want you to meet my friends, and my sister, as my girlfriend. You and Carter could come to games night at my place, with James and Winn and Lucy and Alex?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Cat says, and Kara only realizes how worried she had been when she sees Cat smile. “I’ll even call Winslow by his real name.”

“He prefers Winn,” Kara has to add, but she’s grinning, and Cat is still smiling at her, and her breathing is getting easier again. “My name is Kara Zor-El,” she says.

“Kara Zor-El,” Cat says, eyes shining. “It’s nice to meet you.”  

-

For all of the talk about it, Kara still expects it to be awkward, bringing Cat and Carter to games night. Partly because she chickens out and only tells everyone the day of—quickly, in hallways, on the way to meetings, not wanting to give anyone a chance to freak out. They all take it surprisingly well though, ask minimal questions.

And Cat drags her out to the balcony during the middle of the day to worry about Carter being shy, because it’s a lot of new and mostly new people, and Kara tries to help but thinks she’s probably distracted by how it feels, being the person Cat talks to about this.

As soon as Cat and Carter get in the door, though, Carter gravitates toward Winn, already talking at him like they’re old friends. Winn has even more games than Carter does, and they spend twenty minutes quizzing each other on their collections and then discussing the merits of Boss Monster 2 versus Munchkin. Cat has brought a bottle of wine that she splits with Alex and James, who are both equally impressed.

Since the last games night Kara hosted—weeks ago, she realizes with a wince—Alex and Lucy have told Winn and James about their relationship, clear from the way the two men don’t bat an eye at the two of them curled up on the love seat. They look happy.

“You should try this one,” James says, passing his glass of wine to Lucy. “You’ll hate it less than usual,’

Lucy hmms but takes it from him, gamely swirls it around and takes a sip.

“This is good, Cat,” she says.

“Obviously,” Cat says, but she looks pleased.

“Alright,” Winn says, finally emerging from his debate with Carter. “We’re going with Munchkin because there are more of us and it will be easier to learn, but we’re doing Boss Monster 2 next time!”

“Mom and I already know how to play both, so we’re fine,” Carter says, and Kara’s mouth drops open.

“Really?” she asks.

“You knew I played Settlers of Catan, I don’t know how this is that much of a surprise, Kara,” Cat says, and James smirks.

“I mean, I’m surprised, but all I know about you is from Kara’s stories,” Alex says.

“All good I hope,” Cat says with a smirk, and Alex smiles at her.

Winn deals the cards for the game, and Cat leans forward to see better then winces, rubs at her shoulder that Kara knows has been bothering her for the past couple of days. Cat only puts up a token protest when Kara slides around behind her on the couch and starts massaging it with sure fingertips.

“You two are the most married of all married people I have seen with my own two eyes,” Winn says. “I have no idea how you thought you were being subtle around the office at all—please don’t fire me, Miss Grant!”

Carter laughs, and tries to high-five Winn, but he’s still wincing, watching Cat. There’s something in the careful looks on everyone else’s face, and Kara thinks of their muted reactions earlier in the day.

“You all knew the whole time, didn’t you,” Kara says, feeling miserable.

“I’ve known since the first time you said you had to go because ‘Miss Grant needs me to uh, help her with something,’” Lucy says, grinning.

“You should really spend some time training with the lie detector,” Alex says.

“I knew as soon as you tried to tell me you weren’t gay,” Winn says. “That you liked Cat, I mean, the dating I definitely figured out when you two started undressing each other with your eyes more than usual.”

“Gross,” Carter says.

“Sorry,” Winn says.

James coughs when Kara looks at him and she goes beet red immediately, remembers him catching them coming out of Cat’s bathroom. “I think you’re good for each other,” he says. “You look happy.”

“Thank you,” Cat says softly, and Kara wraps her arm around her shoulders, squeezes gently.

“The important thing is that you’re telling us now,” Alex says. There’s a look in her eyes that tells Kara this isn’t quite over yet, but it is for tonight, at least. “We should start the game,” Alex says, and they do.

When Winn suggests a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for next time, later on in the night, Cat offers to DM with an almost manic look in her eyes, and when she disappears to take a call, they all hear from Carter about the prolific campaigns she ran in college with her then-roommate, _the current president_. Kara thinks she might faint.

It’s funny that after everything, it’s seeing Cat’s nerdy side at the game nights Kara has been blowing off for dates that makes her think this really could work, after all.

-

Games night runs late, and Lucy is falling asleep on Alex’s shoulder as Kara boils water for a second pot of tea, relaxes into Cat’s embrace as her _girlfriend, official actual girlfriend_ comes up behind her and wraps her arms around her.

“The boss could always give us part of the morning off, so we don’t have to work so early,” Kara tries. James, who is watching Winn and Carter play a game on the Nintendo Switch from his perch on one of the kitchen stools, stifles a laugh.

“The boss left the building two glasses of wine ago,” Cat says. “But nice try, dear.”

Kara _melts_.

-

When she goes over to Cat’s the next evening, a Friday, Carter is at his father’s, and Kara brings the box with her.

“I’m sorry,” Kara says. “That I didn’t want to tell anyone we were dating.”

Cat frowns at her. “You suggested it, but as I recall it was a mutual decision,” she says, and then her face softens. “Kara.” She reaches out to touch the tear Kara hadn’t felt running down her face.

“Please don’t fire anyone,” Kara says, watches the concern on Cat’s face grow and then can’t watch her anymore, stares at the tablecloth instead. “During that meeting the first day after, the woman in HR I spoke to implied I was dating you because I wanted a promotion.” She grips the table, feels so small. “I didn’t… I knew you would hate it, people thinking that about you, about me. I just thought if we didn’t give them the chance, at least right away… but then I felt so horrible, keeping it a secret.”

When she looks up, Cat is looking straight at her, through her, carefully blank look on her face. “I thought you might be bothered by our age difference,” Cat says. “Or that you were concerned about your secret identity.” She looks down, sighs. “I was going to bring it up eventually, but I just wanted you so much I didn’t want to think about it.”

Kara hadn’t realized Cat could tell something was off, too—though of course she could—and it makes her feel horrible hearing about it.

Cat looks at Kara, gaze sharpening. “Kara. I know you never want me to fire anyone, but what that woman said to you was completely inappropriate, especially for someone in Human Resources, which is there to deal tactfully with interpersonal conflicts in my company. I need her name. She needs to be dealt with. I would do the same no matter who this happened to. And I’m so sorry that it happened to you.”

Kara breathes in, breathes out.

Cat reaches out, takes her hand over the table. “You are an amazing person, Kara. There’s no one I would rather have in my life, in my home.”

Kara squeezes the hand back, feels like her heart is going to beat out of her chest.

“You’re pretty amazing yourself,” she says.

“Is there anything else?” Cat asks.

Kara only hesitates for a moment. “Please don’t call me Kiera again,” she says. “I know we already talked about it, but I didn’t get to tell you how it made me feel. Like I was your assistant again, not worth you remembering my name. Also, I know you know I’m not dating you for a promotion, but I do need to talk to my boss about how that works, because Genvieve implied it wasn’t through her.”

Cat sighs. “It is. I’ll talk to her. I’m sorry, we should have had a longer conversation about this when we started.” She pauses. “And thank you for telling me, about the name. I won’t do it again.”

“Anything else for you?” Kara asks, emboldened. “While we’re communicating?”

“The usual insecurities, other than those I already mentioned,” Cat says. “You’re right, I don’t want people thinking those things about me either, but I know there’s nothing I can do about it, and we’ll deal with it together.” She smiles. “El mayarah, was it?”

Kara kisses her.

-

They end up in Cat’s bed, hours later, and Kara turns on the box, blushing, and Cat takes off her shirt, her bra, her pants, and licks, bites, kisses her everywhere. Kara feels like she’ll burn alive with it.

Cat kisses her lower, and lower, and—“you taste sweet,” Cat says, lifting her head up to face her, and her mouth and chin are glistening, and Kara squirms, embarrassed and desperately turned on, and maybe a little in love with the woman making her feel like this. “Humans are saltier.”

And then Cat’s mouth is on her again and there are tears running down Kara’s face because she’s never felt anything like this before—she had no idea.

She has no idea what to do to make Cat feel the same way.

“I’ll tell you what to do,” Cat says, utter confidence in her voice, and Kara feels herself clench at the words. She loves it when Cat is demanding.

“Lick,” Cat says, later. “Point of your tongue—yes, there, good girl.”

Kara wants to hear those words as often as she can.

-

In the morning, Cat goes into work. The environmentalist CatCo was speaking with got approval from the city to oversee some of the changes to the port, and… duty calls.

Kara meets Alex for sticky buns at Noonan’s, ready to go into work too if she’s called, but not for an hour at least.

“I was waiting for you to be ready,” Alex says, “I knew, I was just waiting. I just need to know, Kara, why didn’t you feel like you could tell me?” When she asks, Kara can hear the echo of the night Alex told Kara about her sexuality, can see it in the tension in Alex’s shoulders, even though her tone is neutral enough.

“It wasn’t you,” Kara says. She pushes her plate to the other side of the table and then gets in next to Alex on the bench, wraps her arms around her in a hug until Alex squawks at the pressure.

“Too much love, Kara!”

“Sorry,” Kara says, loosens her grip. Last night she didn’t have to worry about squeezing too hard. The memory makes her blush. “At first it felt too good to be true, y’know? I didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t want to burst my own bubble. And then I was feeling really insecure, and… I wasn’t really talking to Cat, either. We worked it out last night.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re putting the regulator to good use at least,” Alex mumbles.

“Alex!” Kara exclaims, and huffs at her sister’s laughter. “Oh god, I can’t believe you knew I was dating Cat when I asked you for that.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know that I knew, especially when I got it to you so fast,” Alex says. “A kryptonite emitter to have around for hypothetical future sex? Yeah, that makes sense.”

Kara sighs. “I do feel better though,” she says. “Now that you know. I felt so much better too after coming out as Supergirl, and telling Winn and James. I don’t know why I didn’t put it together that this would help too.”

“I don’t know how it took both of us this long to figure out our sexualities in the first place,” Alex says. “We’re both really smart.”

Kara laughs.

“We can tell Eliza together at least,” she says. “You can hold my hand as tight as you want.”

“You cannot hold my hand as tight as you want,” Alex says, stealing a bite of Kara’s third sticky bun. “But thanks. I think we can put that conversation off for a while yet.”

“At least until next Thanksgiving,” Kara agrees. “Keep the family drama tradition going.”

Alex groans and steals the rest of her pastry.

-

Kara spends an entire Saturday running around for Cat. It’s not the first time this has happened, but it’s the first time she’s not getting paid for it. Carter is with her, and she’s picking up snacks for the D&D campaign that is apparently actually happening, not picking up Cat’s dry cleaning and making dinner reservations for her. Well, she does make a dinner reservation, but it’s for a double date with Alex and Lucy next week, at a place Cat knows will be discreet, because Kara can’t fly three people out of the country at once. They’re coming out to the rest of the world slowly, planning with J’onn and Cat’s publicist to help keep the paparazzi away from Kara so no one figures out her secret identity.

For now, all Kara has to focus on is her plans with her girlfriend, her girlfriend’s son, her sister, and their friends—barring any Supergirl emergencies, of course.

It’s a good feeling.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: "Kara and Cat trying to hide that they are dating when it is painfully obvious to everyone, rating: T" and "Kara getting scared and insecure that she is not good enough for Cat and trying to hide that as well, rating: M or E"
> 
> If anyone wants to chat about my very specific thoughts on games nights, friendships vs. romantic relationships, asexual characters, or really anything else, hit me up on tumblr @queersintherain!
> 
> (Also, all I want for Christmas is comments! Please let me know if you liked it :D)


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